Bulletin d’analyse phénoménologique III 2, 2007

ISSN 1782-2041 http://popups.ulg.ac.be/bap.htm

Arend Heyting and Phenomenology: Is the Meeting

Feasible?
By MIRIAM FRANCHELLA
Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract In the literature one can see the increasing trend of supporting
intuitionism through phenomenology. Brouwer’s pupil, Arend Heyting, is
said to be a forerunner of this trend, as he used a phenomenological
terminology in order to define intuitionist negation, by elaborating the first
intuitionist logic. In this paper, the author tries to explore—with reference to
the unpublished material stored in the Heyting archive—how much of
Heyting’s general thought is compatible with phenomenology. In the
conclusion she suggests that Heyting and Husserl, insofar as they both think
consciousness must be the very beginning of knowledge, share a same anti-
psychologistic attitude which coexists with an attempt to overcome
solipsism. Yet, the phenomenological concept of degree of evidence cannot
be applied to Heyting’s scale of evidence (including small natural numbers,
large natural numbers, infinitely proceeding sequences, the universal
quantifier), on the one side because it is not clear if the latter is common and
shared by all intuitionists, and, on the other side, because the former
presupposes a revisable evidence that does not fit to Heyting’s viewpoint.
Furthermore, Husserl’s and Heyting’s conceptions of the nature of
mathematics and logic and of their relationship are essentially different.
From an intuitionist viewpoint mathematics is the domain of evidence, while
logic transcribes its regularities. From a phenomenological viewpoint,
mathematics remains outside the domain of evidence. Apophantic logic
coincides with mathematics (without either of them absorbing the other), but
transcendental logic lies at a higher level.

1
 Introduction

Recently, it has been proposed to use phenomenological methods and

concepts in order to solve some problems arisen from the intuitionistic
foundations of mathematics. 1 Some authors have claimed that Brouwer’s
pupil, Arend Heyting, was a forerunner of this trend, as—in a certain period
of his scientific production—he used a phenomenological terminology to
express the intuitionistic interpretation of logical constants [see Tieszen
1984, p. 404 and Gethmann 2002b]. On the contrary, Tomasz Placek has
raised some doubts about the similarity between Heyting’s perspective and
phenomenology in his 1999 volume Mathematical intuitionism and inter-
subjectivity, where he affirmed that Heyting’s thought—unlike Brouwer’s,
which could easily be expressed in terms of a transcendental ego—was
intrinsically psychologist. Faced with such different viewpoints, we now
want to ask whether there really was (or can be) an agreement between
Heyting’s perspective and phenomenology.
In order to evaluate pros and contras about the question, it is useful to
consider not only Heyting’s published writings, which have mainly to do
with mathematics and contains only a few remarks relating to philosophical
issues, but also his unpublished writings stored in the Noord-Hollands
Rijksarchief Haarlem and presented by Miriam Franchella in her 1995 “Like
a bee on the window-pane.”

1. An overview

We recall here that Heyting’s aim in his unpublished writings was not to
build a systematic philosophy. Namely, he affirmed: “In what follows some
philosophical questions will be discussed without need of a general definition
of philosophy” (F8.7). 2 But he only gave the amount of philosophical
considerations required for treating and overcoming solipsism. This was a
peculiar aspect of Brouwer’s personality and mystical attitude, which could
easily be used against intuitionism. So, it is clear how this topic was

1
See Tieszen 1984, 1988, 1995. and van Atten 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006.
2
A.S. Troelstra made the inventory of the Heyting Nachlass. The material we refer
to was found in a red wrapper with the inscription “filosofie.” Its content has been
divided into groups F1/F21. The F1 and F2 groups are the older ones and presumably
date from the period 1930-1940. The others seem to date from 1978-1980.
2

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 important for Heyting both from a personal viewpoint and in relation to his
activity of promoting intuitionism.
In his “local,” restricted philosophy, Heyting affirmed first of all that
the best way to avoid dogmatism is to start with data of consciousness, which
he described as follows in the oldest part of his notes:

It is as if I were a fine cloth, but covered by a thick coat of paint so that only
coarse folds remain visible. If I manage to remove the coat of paint, the
design comes to light, and it is an indescribable design. You cannot define
anything finer; its lines have no importance, its development is in itself
nothing: still there is in it all the force of the world, all beauty and all
emotion. Only its surface is touched by the paint: under the latter it preserves
all its beauty. But why cannot it exist out of its covered state? As soon as it is
removed, contact with the outer world makes it change its shape and loose its
colours so that I speedily cover it again in order to save it from vanishing.
(F1.4)

In the recent part of his notes, he stressed again that the life of spirit is “full
indeterminacy,” it is not splittable, it does not consist of separable units
related to each other. It is “reason,” the faculty of isolating, that the man has.
It performs the individuation, i.e., it distinguishes among different im-
pressions and sensations of our Self and then links them with each other. The
most frequent link is the temporal one, between remembrances, which play
an important role in the work of reason. Heyting supplied us with an
example:

Such impressions have been followed by tactile impressions, some of which

reason has attached to the concept “body.” It follows that also in this case,
after some movements, we can have the tactile sensation that there are bodies.
And again on the basis of preceding experiences, it arrives at representations
with the type and the form of the bodies; representation consists of visual and
tactile imagined sensations. (F1.5)

Spatial schema intervenes to help us in this operation. Such schema does not
come from experience, because “experience does not give us anything deter-
mined,” but it is “built by reason by its own strength and then it is applied to
experience” according to a process of induction, after noting that different
tactile and visual sensations can be classified within the tri-dimensional
space and that this is a fruitful tool for surviving.
Heyting used the Popperian terminology of world 1-2-3, in a permuted
order, to present his hypothesis of the path of consciousness towards the

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 world: world 1 is the content of consciousness; world 2 is that of other
minds; world 3 is the external world (to which even the own body belongs),
and then he adds a world 4, which is the world of abstraction (F5 p. 24).
We have said that Heyting did not aim at building either a philosophy
or an ethics (F1.4). In his unpublished writings, which are very rich of
reflections about the content of consciousness as starting point for philo-
sophy, his final aim was to overcome Brouwer’s solipsism. He added also
some hints for reflections about how philosophical trends spread, arguing
that the cause of it is the lack of a common philosophical language. Such a
language is difficult to obtain as philosophy must start from daily language
and then refine it so that it can express all conceptual subtleties:

Two philosophers do not agree. How can this happen? Both are clever and
have reflected deeply on the specific question.
It must be that they use words with different meanings, and since the meaning
of a word can be determined only by the use made of it, the difference in
meaning must be determined by the individual’s work. This is an important
task of secondary philosophy. Instead of two philosophers one can also study
the work of one in this way! (F8.19)

Heyting’s general attitude towards philosophy explains his remarks about the
Cartesian cogito, which allows us to begin our comparison between Heyting
and Husserl.
On this purpose, it is useful to recall that Heyting, although referring to
many twenty-century philosophers in his unpublished paper (Russell, Popper,
Eccles, Gallie, Krech, Nuchelmans, Olivers, Wisdom, Austin), did not
mention Husserl, except for two titles of his works: Ideen and Krisis, yet
without further explanation.
We can only compare them from a theoretical viewpoint, without
historical support.
The appreciation of the Cartesian “cogito” is shared by both authors.
Heyting more specifically suggests that it is better to express it as
“cogitatur” (in order to stress both its intersubjective and objective
character), emphasizing the fact that for him “thought” means the whole life
of soul (F1.3) and that, “in order to follow these descriptions, we must free
ourselves from the daily habits of thinking” (F1.4). All of this presents
astonishing similarities with Husserl’s epoché. There is still in Husserl also a
criticism to the limits of the Cartesian cogito, which he considers is a piece of
the natural world, a remainder of an incompletely performed epoché, which
we maintain to later re-obtain the world we started from:

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 Hier machen wir nun, ganz Descartes folgend, die große Wendung, die, recht
vollzogen, zur transzendentalen Subjektivität führt: die Wendung zum ego
cogito als dem apodiktisch gewissen und letzten Urteilsboden, auf den jede
radikale Philosophie zu gründen ist. (Hua 1, p. 7)

According to Husserl, the Cartesian cogito contains a danger: if we save a

particle of the world inside our Self, we can prove the rest of the world by
means of syllogisms. Furthermore, Descartes did not discover the infinite
field of transcendental self-consciousness, of the ego, neither he passed to
“cogitations”: he did not consider the cogitatum, that is the intentional
correlate of the cogito.

2. Solipsism

We have seen that solipsism was the main aim of Heyting’s philosophical
reflections, hence a further comparison comes out immediately as Husserl
put the question whether phenomenology should be stigmatized as trans-
cendental solipsism, and solved the problem by meeting the other men in an
immanent way.
We first need to take a closer look at the details of Heyting’s analysis
of solipsism.
Heyting shared Mithoff’s idea that “solipsism gives prolegomena to
every philosophy” (F8.7)—and, for this reason, he said that he rehabilitated
solipsism, which scares so many philosophers. Philosophy has to start with
the data of consciousness: “According to my viewpoint, philosophy should
start with a solipsistic viewpoint as only my own content of consciousness is
given to me directly.” Yet, he added, “no philosophy should stop at this
point” (F7.7). In particular, this does not mean either to believe in solipsism
or to make a theory out of it. Because solipsism, as a belief or as a theory,
should be however incommunicable (otherwise it would be self-
contradictory). On this purpose, he quoted Wittgenstein: “Namely, when the
solipsist indeed affirms that only he exists, and nothing besides, then it is
effectively possible to carry his theory ad absurdum” (F8.16). As he was
convinced that the contact with other human beings is an unquestionable
datum, he affirmed (F5 p. 1) that the solipsist

is like a bee closed inside a room, that cannot find the way outwards. It sees
the outer world, but, when it thinks it is reaching it, it flies against the
window-pane separating it from the other (namely, the thought that even it is
true is real thought).

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 Against solipsism, Heyting used also a comparison with autism, to affirm
that who is isolated from the other, is isolated from himself (F8.3).
So Heyting and Husserl both think we find the other egos inside our
own immanence, or, better, that we find them first as immanent in ourselves.
Yet, when encountering the others in this way, i.e., by observing the data of
consciousness, Heyting firstly experiences a spiritual contact, i.e., perceives
himself as positively modified, as enriched, by other people. On this basis, he
hypothesised the existence of other people, and, secondly, he attached them a
body, by analogy with himself. Body, hence, remains in the background. For
Heyting, other minds absolutely come before the outer world:

In my opinion the notion of other mind is more primitive than that of an

outside world. As long as he does not physically attack me (there are other
exceptions) another man’s mind is to me more important than his body (even
if he threatens to attack me I try to change his mind, not his body). (F19.1)

Furthermore, he emphasized the social context. “The individual, he said,

cannot be separated from the culture where he lives” (F8.3), and he specified
that the attachment to other people with sentiments analogous to ours

held only for men of our own group. Not long ago workers were considered
by the rich as completely different beings, and nowadays many people still
think and feel the same about black people. The mass media continuously
make groups larger. (F8.10)

According to Heyting, intersubjectivity has a further role to play: some

beliefs—like that about the permanence of objects in our absence—are
reinforced by the social community where we live:

Why am I convinced of the existence of Japan? Well, because I have been

taught so at school and imagine that some men there perceive things as I
myself perceive my environment. Here intersubjectivity is going to play a big
role. (F7.11-12)

For Husserl, finding other people inside ourselves requires that we start with
our body as a Leib, i.e., not merely as a physical body, but as an organic body
which can be dominated by our will: “Meinen Leib, das einzige Objekt […],
in dem ich unmittelbar schalte und walte und in der Sonderheit walte in
jedem seiner Organe” (Hua I, p. 128). Our body is recognized as being
linked to our spirit (our ego), as a body-spirit. The other egos occur because
our ego and other egos (when coming into our field of perception) form an

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 original pairing, where we perceive the other’s body as similar to ours but
also as distinct from it, as we cannot organically dominate it. Hence the
other’s body is recognized to be linked to a spirit just like our own body. The
natural body belonging to my sphere appresents all the other egos—which
appresent each other and ourselves—, i.e., as a community of monads which
share an objective nature and an objective world:

Zu beachten ist dabei, dass es im Sinne gelingender Fremdapperzeption liegt,

dass eben ohne weiteres die Welt der Anderen als die ihrer Erscheinungs-
systeme als dieselbe erfahren sein muss wie die meiner Erscheinungssysteme,
was eine Identität des Erscheinungssystems in sich schließt. (Hua I p. 154)

Husserl considers the existence of anomalies, for instance in the case of blind
or deaf persons, and explains that the objective world has existence by virtue
of a harmonious confirmation of apperceptive constitution, a confirmation
performed by continuously experiencing a consistent harmoniousness, which
always needs to be restored and extended through corrections:

Die Einstimmigkeit erhält sich nun auch vermöge einer Umbildung der
Apperzeptionen durch Unterscheidung zwischen Normalität und Anomali-
täten als ihre intentionalen Modifikationen, bzw. der Konstitution neuer
Einheiten im Wechsel dieser Anomalitäten. (Hua I, p. 154)

Dadurch urgestiftet ist die Koexistenz meines Ich (und meines konkreten ego
überhaupt) und des fremden Ich, meines und seines intentionalen Lebens,
meiner und seiner Realitäten, kurzum eine gemeinsame Zeitform, wobei von
selbst jede primordinale Zeitlichkeit die bloße Bedeutung einer einzel-
subjektiven, originalen Erscheinungsweise der objektiven gewinnt. (Hua I p.
156)

The body is essential to our ego, it is deeply linked to it and submerges it in

space-time. Husserl set himself as a goal a phenomenology of time that only
consider the essence of time, by clarifying the ways in which time reveals
itself to consciousness. It came out that two inseparably united intentiona-
lities are present in the unique stream of consciousness, in the instant
actuality of the stream of consciousness. Through the former, the immanent
one, objective time is constituted, where there is duration and alteration of
what endures; in the other intentionality, it is the quasi-temporal arrangement
of the phases of the flow that becomes constituted.
On the contrary, Heyting did not devote a deep analysis to time. He
only stressed that it comes in only after individuation, as a linking among

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 objects. The datum of consciousness is a mass without form (and with a
fantastic beauty) on which identification happens. Spatialization and
temporalization come in only after the constitution of objects, as a linking
among objects. Time does not have for Heyting the same relevance as for
Husserl: namely, even if he stemmed from the intuitionistic tradition, which
has Kant as an ancestor, Heyting did not put the intuition of time even at the
beginning of arithmetic, but the human faculty of individuating, as time
seemed to him too closely linked to the psychological side of man. This is a
relevant point for our aim.
Brouwer used “intuition” with reference to two-ity (as abstraction of
temporal schema), to infinitely proceeding sequences and to species; then, he
specified a notion of mathematical truth in terms of fully performed mental
construction (without using the expression “evidence”): the belief that we
can trust the applicability of logical laws “is based on the certainty that we
consider systems that have been built mathematically” (CW I p. 75), and “at
the point where you enounce the contradiction, I simply perceive that the
construction no longer goes, that the required structure cannot be imbedded
in the given basic structure” (CW I p. 73). For Heyting, on the contrary, the
reference to temporal intuition disappears, and natural numbers, infinitely
proceedings sequences and species are based on the acknowledgment that we
have a faculty of individuating:

We can count all sorts of things but they have one property in common,
namely that they can be isolated. Isolating an object, focusing our attention on
it is a fundamental function of our mind. No thinking is possible without it. In
isolating objects the mind is active. Our perception at a given moment is not
given as a collection of entities, it is a whole in which we isolate entities by a
more or less conscious mental act. […] In reality what we isolate mentally are
not objects, but perceptions. I can fix my attention on a certain impression, in
most cases visual. In practice that impression is immediately associated with
innumerable memories, impressions and images to form the notion of an
object in the general sense of the word. But for counting it is inessential what
there is isolated, it is the mental act of isolating that matters. The entity
conceived in the human minds is the starting point of all thinking, and in
particular of mathematics. When we think, we think in entities. This does not
mean that all our mental life consists of thinking entities. On the contrary, the
more intensely we live, the less we think in isolated entities. Under the
influence of strong emotions the world seems a whole, loaded with emotion.
Only after the emotions are soothed we map out aims and ways to attain them.
(1974, p. 4)

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 This reminds us of Heyting’s description of consciousness in his unpublished
papers, which can better reveal his attitude. There, he specified: “My only
weapon here is introspection. Psychology as a science is useless for this
research because it continuously changes the concept of truth” (F6.2), by
showing that he meant introspection as something not linked to psycho-
logical attitude (at least in his intentions). His attitude was not psychologistic.
He introduced the concept of evidence as self-evidence and avoided the word
“intuition,” as this seemed to him as connoted in a psychologistic way.
Furthermore, he spoke of self-evidence of mathematical statements as a
unique criterion for their truth (1958b, p. 103), but he specified that a
mathematical theorem “expresses the success of a certain mathematical
construction” (1958b, p. 107), i.e., that the truth of the theorem consists in a
mathematical construction fully performed. Hence, his concept of self-
evidence was however the Brouwerian one as “performed mental construc-
tion,” expressed in a way that did not seem psychologistic to him. Therefore,
Heyting’s “psychologism” cannot be opposed (as Placek did) to the
phenomenological interpretation of his thought. On the contrary, Heyting
wanted to avoid any charge of psychology, as also phenomenology wanted.

3. Abstract objects

In his theory of knowledge, Husserl distinguished between intuition as

immediate perception and intuition as categorical intuition. The former takes
place in a direct way, but any focussing on some part of the perceived is
excluded. The perceived is caught as a whole. Categorial intuition is the
source of what is called an object, and is based on given intuitions. The
“object” is never given in its entirety but it is seen as the ideal end of a series
of approximations, which are explained in terms of intentions and their
fulfilment. We can first consider medium-sized objects of daily experience.
They are only given in a perspectival manner: there can be indefinitely many
percepts of the same object, all differing in content. Some parts of the object
are given and some are not, so this suggests the limiting case of an adequate
perception in which the object is not given imperfectly. That is why the
relation of fulfilment admits degrees in which epistemic value steadily
increases. In case of fulfilment, a synthesis of identity takes place:

Immerhin deutet uns die relative Rede von “mehr oder minder direkt” und
vom “selbst” die Hauptsache einigermaßen an: dass die Erfüllungssynthesis
eine Ungleichwertigkeit der verknüpften Glieder zeigt, derart, dass der

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 erfüllende Akt einen Vorzug herbeibringt, welcher der bloßen Intention
mangelt, nämlich dass er ihr die Fülle des “selbst” erteilt, sie mindestens
direkter an die Sache selbst heranführt. Und die Relativität dieses direkt und
selbst deutet wieder darauf hin, dass die Erfüllungsrelation etwas vom
Charakter einer Steigerungsrelation an sich hat. Eine Verkettung solcher
Relationen erscheint darnach als möglich, in denen sich der Vorzug
schrittweise steigert; wobei aber jede solche Steigerungsreihe auf eine ideale
Grenze hinweist oder sie schon in ihrem Endglied realisiert, welche aller
Steigerung ein unüberschreitbares Ziel setzt: das Ziel der absoluten
Erkenntnis, der adäquaten Selbstdarstellung des Erkenntnisobjekts. (Hua
19/2, pp. 597-598)

Of course, it is also possible for the intention to be disappointed: a

“frustration,” that however presupposes a partial fulfilment. Also the
frustration is a synthesis, a synthesis of distinction:

Der Übereinstimmung entspricht aber als korrelate Möglichkeit die

“Nichtübereinstimmung”, der “Widerstreit”. Die Anschauung “stimmt” zur
Bedeutungsintention nicht, sie “streitet” mit ihr. Widerstreit “trennt”, aber das
Erlebnis des Widerstreites setzt in Beziehung und Einheit, es ist eine Form
der Synthesis […] von der Art der Unterscheidung. (Hua 19/2, p. 575)

The same activity of knowledge allows us to get to ideal objects:

Die Evidenz irrealer, im weitesten Sinne idealer Gegenstände ist in ihrer

Leistung völlig analog derjenigen der gewöhnlichen, sogenannten inneren und
äußeren Erfahrung, der man allein — ohne einen anderen Grund als den eines
Vorurteils — die Leistung einer ursprünglichen Objektivierung zutraut. (Hua
17, p. 163)

As identity synthesis presupposes a temporal structure, all objects have a

temporal being: ideal objects are so in the sense of being at all times: they are
supertemporal as they are omnitemporal, because they are freely repro-
ducible at all times (Hua 1 p. 155). 1
As in their case we do not refer to perceptual stuff but to the data of
categorial intuition, in order to consider the possible different perspectives,
we have to use a specific method: the free variation in imagination. What
persists through this is some invariant, the essence common to all variants,
the eidos:

1
On this purpose, see Lohmar 1993.
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 Die hierbei zu vollziehende Variation des (als Ausgang notwendigen)
Exempels ist es, in der sich das “Eidos” ergeben soll und mittels deren auch
die Evidenz der unzerbrechlichen eidetischen Korrelation von Konstitution
und Konstituiertem. Soll sie das leisten, so ist sie nicht zu verstehen als eine
empirische Variation, sondern al seine Variation die in der Freiheit der reinen
Phantasie und im reinen Bewusstsein der Beliebigkeit — des “reinen”
Überhaupt — vollzogen wird. […] Eben in dieser Deckung tritt aber das in
dieser freien und immer wieder neu zu gestaltenden Variation notwendig
Verharrende, das Invariante hervor, das unzerbrechlich Selbige im Anders
und Immer-wieder-anders, das allgemeinsame Wesen. (Hua 17, p. 255)

Such variations are intentions that can be fulfilled or not, as in the case of
medium-sized objects. The evidence is given in the (ideal) case of an
adequate intuition of the object, and it should be distinguished from the
feeling that can accompany it. Perfect adequacy is possible only when the
“object” is the transcendental ego. Hence, in general, there are degrees of
evidence.
In his unpublished writings, Heyting presented the levels of a
knowledge starting with self-consciousness: after individualization,
spatialization and temporalization, we have a so-called “abstraction,”
developing along these steps (F11.5):

direct experience (people are included);

representation of the space around me where I can move;
rememberings of neighbourhoods where I was before;
communications by other people;
spatial relationships among the represented neighbourhoods;
systematization of those relationships through maps and globes;
insertion of all structures inside a generalization towards infinity;
astronomy;
small microscopic objects;
theoretical physics. Particles existing a fraction of a second.

He specified that most people reach only the fifth step. Furthermore,
he added:

Each of these abstract concepts begins with something simple and evident. So
also “existence”: firstly, there are the objects of my direct neighbourhood,
which exist; finally stars and mesons. How many steps are there between
them, and how does the concept of existence change by passing from one to

11

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 another? Gods, natural numbers and large cardinals are at the top of those
steps: at which step does the rule for the existential quantifier hold? (F5 p. 20)

Heyting’s theory of our knowledge of abstract objects is not further

elaborated. Only mathematical objects are carefully examined in his
intuitionist writings, where he collected the doubts raised by some authors
and presented a scale of evidence for intuitionistic notions, mirroring the
disagreement among intuitionists on the question of which Brouwerian
notions are evident. In 1962 he summed up the situation as follows:

asserts like 2 + 2 = 4,
general asserts on natural numbers,
the notion of order type ω,
the notion of negation,
the universal quantification,
free choice sequences,
the notion of species.

Can we interpret this scale in the sense of Husserl’s “degrees of

evidence”?
We should first ask whether the scale of evidence alleged by Heyting
is something “objective,” that is, whether either everybody agree with seeing
the same difference between the levels of evidence, or there is a difference of
opinion among intuitionists about mathematical objects. In his presentation,
Heyting oscillated between wondering himself if, for instance, all species of
all natural numbers form a species (1962, p. 195), and giving a scale in terms
of a mere “increase of hypotheticity” (by specifying, 1 however, that his
exposition of them does not follow a linear order). It is clear that, sic rebus
stantibus, the phenomenological model accepting degrees of evidence is not
applicable, as the differences between degrees should be intended with
respect to the transcendental ego and not with respect to an individual ego.
Let us try to suppose (even if this does not fully square with Heyting’s
presentation) that the scale of evidences be “common and shared.” We
should notice that, in order to use the phenomenological degrees of evidence
inside intuitionism, one should give up that idea of “fixedness” of evidence,
after it has been experienced: namely, phenomenology admits that what is
evident is revisable. 2 “The possibility of deception is inherent in the evidence

1
1962, p. 195.
2
See on this purpose Tieszen 1997, p. 455.
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 of experience and does not annul either its fundamental character or its
effect” (Hua 17, p. 156, translated by D. Cairns). However, “the evidence of
a new experience is what makes the previously uncontested experience
undergo a modification of believing” (Hua 17, p. 164). This is “the living
truth from the living source” (Hua 17, p. 246) and not that kind of truth that
comes from sciences and that is falsely absolutized.
Surely, such a viewpoint was not in Brouwer’s spirit. We recall here
this quote: “[…] truths which, just like mathematical truths, anybody who
has once understood will forever affirm” (CW I, p. 106). So, if we want to
support intuitionism through phenomenology, we should at least modify
Brouwerian intuitionism under this respect. Yet, we can hypothesize that
Heyting, on his side, was favourable to revisable evidences, as in 1958b (p.
103) he affirmed:

It can be asked whether in intuitionistic mathematics absolute rigour and

absolute certainty are realized. The obvious answer seems to be that absolute
certainty for human thought is impossible and even makes no sense.

Furthermore, we find in some of his unpublished writings an explanation for

his statement: in consciousness, i.e., at the starting point of all our
knowledge,

there is nothing definite, distinct to be found out; sensations follow each other
and have no proper individuality. When we, nonetheless, assume definiteness,
we speak of distinct “things” and say that all of them take place in space and
time, it is necessary for us to substitute our content of consciousness
consciously or unconsciously through something else; in other words, we
begin with a falsity, with a lie (the lie of the discrete). (F2)

But, when confronted with his own scale of evidences, at the very beginning,
in 1958, he stressed (1958a, pp. 337-338) that the difference between the
degrees of evidence was only a question of nuances, and did not imply a
dangerous jump as it would be required to allow clearly non-constructive
notions (like the actual infinite). However, he later realized that, at its very
basis, a degree of evidence challenges evidence as a criterion of truth, as a
definitive certainty: “What is intuitively clear in mathematics has been
proved not to be intuitively clear” (1962, p. 195). That is, while phenomeno-
logy holds that evidence, even in its being self-corrigible, is a guarantee of
truth, for Heyting the realization that evidence is not forever fixed is a
ground for rejecting intuitionism as foundational school in mathematics
(1953, p. 197). This is a proof that he considered a revisable evidence not a

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 suitable criterion of truth. His refusal to consider intuitionism a foundational
school was extended also to the other foundational schools: in their
absoluteness, each of them was lacking of something the other possessed. For
instance, intuitionism undervalued the role of language in mathematics, while
formalism did not stress enough that formal systems in themselves are not
the real objects of mathematics, but represent “some ideas left vague on
purpose” (1953, p. 198). Consequently, he invited philosophers of mathe-
matics to change their aim and to look for the constructivist, Platonist,
formalist elements inside the practice of mathematics. He himself went on by
doing intuitionist mathematics in order to explore its potentialities, but not
with the belief that it was the only way for doing mathematics.
Furthermore, we have to stress that phenomenologists talk about
degrees of evidence also with respect to a same object (the “determinable
X”) whose evidence increases with time. On the contrary, in Heyting’s scale
we have different objects which have different degrees of evidence with
respect to each other. Hence, we have to establish if, from a phenomeno-
logical point of view, it is possible to charge some entities with the
characteristic of being intrinsically less evident than others. Is the property of
being “less evident” a transitory characteristic, or can it be a definitive one?
Some authors believe that it is possible to hold that some entities are
less evident than others forever. Richard Tieszen affirmed (1989, p. 136):

The degree of evidence we have for the existence of large numbers must
obviously differ from that we have in the case of quite small natural numbers.
We can actually complete constructions for small numbers, but not for large
numbers. The evidence would not be “adequate” and perhaps it would also
not count as “apodictic.”

Tieszen states here that, in the case of large natural numbers, the intuition of
the number is founded on the intuition of its “parts”, just in the same way as
the intuition of a medium-sized physical object is founded on the intuition of
its parts (Tieszen 1989, p. 136): “The insight into the possibility of
continuing the construction for natural numbers is analogous to that insight
involved in seeing that we could continue ordinary perception of an object or
objects.” 1
Also van Atten proposed (2004, p. 84) to differentiate inside phenome-
nology between classical mathematical objects and intuitionist mathematical
objects, according to their level of evidence: intuitionism would be “the
1
Yet, we can notice that among medium-sized objects we do not find special ones
that are more evident than others, i.e., that are analogous to small natural numbers.
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 mathematics of a class of objects that are given to us with a particularly high
degree of evidence.” In this way he admitted the possibility that some objects
might be intrinsically less evident than other ones. 1 As we recalled above, the
latest Heyting thought that the only task of the philosopher of mathematics is
to search for the constructivist, Platonist, formalist elements inside the
practice of mathematics, so he was open to accept different kinds of mathe-
matical objects coexisting with each other. Yet, we have to stress once more
that he supported both this view and the abandonment of intuitionism as
foundational school, because he believed that the former is not compatible
with considering evidence a criterion of mathematical truth.

4. A last question: negation inside logic

We can come back to the reasons put forward by some authors in support of
the contention that Heyting’s attitude towards phenomenology was generally
positive. The main reason for this hypothesis is the fact that Heyting defines
negation in terms of the disappointment of an intention. Now, we have to
recall here that the father of intuitionism, L.E.J. Brouwer, set logic the
creative task of transcribing the linguistic regularities present in the language
of mathematics, so the performance of a mental construction might become a
criterion of truth. Although this criterion required a reinterpretation of logical
constants (with respect to the classical interpretation), Brouwer did not
engage himself in a systematic work: he only expressed the new meaning of
the law of excluded middle, in order to show that it was no longer valid. The
task of reinterpreting all logical constants remained open. It was fulfilled by
his pupil, Arend Heyting, also stimulated by a prize established by the
Amsterdam Mathematical Society. Heyting tried to exploit the meaning of
logical constants within a framework where the notion of assertion was
specified. At the very beginning Heyting defined a proposition as “a problem
or, better, a certain wait” (1930b, p. 958), while in 1931, he accepted (1931,
p. 113) Oskar Becker’s remark that a proposition could be seen as “an
intention of alleging proofs.” Yet, in 1934, Heyting came back (1934, pp. 16-
17) to his initial definition of proposition as “posing problems” and in 1956
he definitively stated (1956, p. 98) that “a mathematical proposition p can be
asserted as soon as a mathematical construction with certain given properties
has been carried out.” Throughout these changes of “proposition,” the

1
About the admissibility of intuitionist mathematical entities from a Husserlian
viewpoint see also van Atten 2002 and 2007.
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 intended meaning of negation remained the Brouwerian one. It is worthwhile
to stress that in 1931, negation was described (1931, pp. 113-114) as the
“disappointment of an intention” by referring to Oskar Becker’s Mathema-
tische Existenz (in particular on pp. 54-69). In partial agreement with
Husserl’s Sixth Logical Investigation, Becker had stressed how “disappoint-
ment” and “non-fulfilment” of an intention could not coincide: while
disappointment entails a partial fulfilment of the intention (for instance, the
disappointment of the intention of “a book on the table” entails at least the
presence of the table, in order to ascertain that the book is not there), mere
non-fulfilment is a total negativity (as for the above example: even the table
is lacking). Heyting took note of the fact that the disappointment (and not the
mere non-fulfilment) of an intention seems to describe well the concept of
negation as designed by Brouwer. In his 1907 dissertation, Brouwer had
written: “At the point where you enounce the contradiction, I simply perceive
that the construction no longer goes, that the required structure cannot be
imbedded in the given basic structure” (CW I, p. 73). It was a way of
explaining the fact that there was at issue a construction such that only a part
of it could be performed.
In a letter of September 1934 [see van Atten 2005], Becker let Heyting
notice how important and useful the meaning of intuitionistic logic as “task
calculus” was, and how it could be generalized through the phenomeno-
logical concept of intention (“task” could be seen as a particular case of
“intention”), used in the Husserlian “objective-noematic” sense. Neverthe-
less, from 1934 on, Heyting came back to the initial definition of proposition
as “putting problems.” In 1955 (p. 17) he gave a cryptic explanation for this
change, by referring to the fact that “Kolmogoroff has proposed a conception
which is close to the previous one, but overcomes it insofar as it gives sense
to Heyting’s calculus independently of intuitionistic hypotheses.” In fact,
Kolmogoroff’s paper [1932, p. 58] specifies that this conception “did not
require any particular epistemological premise, for instance an intuitionistic
one,” although it coincides “in its form” with intuitionistic logic. We can
guess that Heyting’s aim here was to avoid awkward questions (like the
epistemological ones), in order to meet “the skeptics” and to let them try to
perform mental mathematical constructions.
As for Heyting’s definition of negation, it was Glivenko, in a letter of
24.10.33 (Troelstra 1988, p. 16), that showed him the analogy between
negation and implication: “We take your axioms and then the following one:
‘an element 0 exists such that, for any given element b, 0 → b’. Formally,
this system will be equivalent to yours. Only, at the place of ¬a, there will be
the operation a → 0.” Heyting got the message and definitely stated (1956)
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 his interpretation of negation as an assertion ¬p that can be affirmed if and
only if there is a construction which leads the supposition that a construction
p be performed to contradiction. Hence any reference to a phenomenological
terminology disappeared.
We see that Heyting’s use of a phenomenological terminology was
limited to an early stage of his reflection about logical constants. Further-
more, his definition of negation, although expressing Brouwer’s thought, was
criticised, during the years 1946-1951, by G.F.C. Griss as intuitionistically
unacceptable, for the reason that intuitionism should rather start from
(forever fixed) evidences in order to reach other (forever fixed) evidences.
Griss’ criticism was at the origin of Heyting’s formulation of the scale of
evidences, which led him to abandon the epistemological perspective that
considers intuitionism a suitable foundation of mathematics. Hence, his
definition of negation cannot be used as an argument to say that phenomeno-
logy can support intuitionism.
Furthermore, there is a difference between Husserl and Heyting:
about the definition of logic.
Heyting gave various definitions of logic. In 1930, he simply repeated
the Brouwerian definition: logic is a collection of linguistic regularities
present in mathematics. On the contrary, in 1954 he affirmed that logic was a
part of mathematics, consisting of its most elementary theorems. In 1955, he
recalled (p. 16) that in intuitionistic mathematics conclusions are not derived
from logical rules forever fixed, but each conclusion is directly validated
through its own evidence. Logic belongs to the applications of mathematics.
Nonetheless he states again that there exist rules according to which it is
possible, in an intuitively clear way, to generate new theorems on the basis of
given mathematical theorems; The theory of this connection is a “mathe-
matical logic,” which thus becomes “a part of mathematics and whose
application outside mathematics would be senseless” (p. 16).
Finally, in 1956 he wrote: “The word ‘logic’ has many different
meanings. I shall not try to give a definition of intuitionist logic, any more
than I have begun this course with a definition of mathematics. Yet, a pre-
liminary remark will be useful. Our logic has only to do with mathematical
propositions.” (p. 97) In other words, in spite of some fluctuations, the idea
remains that logic has to do with mathematical assertions, i.e., that it
describes mental constructions.
In his Formale und transzendentale Logik, at the end of a long and
tortuous path of reflections and reassessments about the question, Husserl
stated that logic is the “science of logos in the form of science,” i.e., that it
determines the general conditions for the possibility of science. Hence, in the
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 first place it is analytic apophantic, i.e., it is a morphology of judgments and
logic of consequences, and, as such, it focuses the categorical objectualities
in general (Hua 17, pp. 139-140):

Das in einem Urteilen Geurteilte ist die geurteilte, die urteilend vermeinte
kategoriale Gegenständlichkeit. Erst, wie wir feststellten, in einem Urteilen
zweiter Stufe wird der Satz im Sinne der Logik — der Satz als Sinn, die
vermeinte kategoriale Gegenständlichkeit als solche — zum Gegenstand, und
sie ist in diesem neuen Urteilen urteilend vermeinte schlechthin.

While analytic (or “formal”) logic is the objective aspect of logic,

transcendental logic is the “subjective” aspect of logic, i.e., the aspect where
the focus is on a “theory of knowledge.” The main aim of transcendental
logic is to point out the idealizing presuppositions of analytic logic, i.e., its
surreptitious assumptions, and to evaluate their ground, i.e., to establish
whether there is any evidence to support them. This inquiry is to be under-
stood in close connection with the division of logic into pre-analytic logic
(dealing with the pure possibility of judgments), the logic of consequence
(dealing with the non-contradictoriness of true judgments) and the logic of
truth (dealing with the truth of judgments).
As for mathematics, Husserl emphasized the fact that either it is
directly apophantic (it is this sort of mathematics that treats of propositional
forms by computing with them like with numbers) or (this is the case of set
theory and cardinal numbers theory) it deals with the “something in general,”
with the object in general, and, for this reason, is defined as a “formal
ontology” (“formal” because it leaves aside any concrete determination of
objects).
This view is very different from the intuitionist one. Husserl conceives
of mathematics as a formal discipline that does not ask about truth, and limits
itself to non-contradictoriness and to the relation “is a consequence of.”
Mathematics remains outside the domain of evidence, i.e., outside the
domain of truth. Apophantic logic coincides with mathematics (without
either of them absorbing the other), but transcendental logic lies at a higher
level.
A possible use of phenomenology to support intuitionism should not
focus on the issue of reaching an agreement between Heyting and Husserl,
but it should consider that some aspects of intuitionism are required to be
changed so that phenomenology may be applied to it. The status of evidence
and the role of logic (with respect to mathematics) are surely the first things
that need to be modified.

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